Hello, fellow jammers! Being a strong believer that later is better than never, here’s a link to the Tiny Shard postmortem. In truth, I started it during the jam and finished it at some point last week, but totally forgot to post here.

Before all that, though, I just wanted to thank the Ludum Dare veterans and the other newcomers for the warm reception and awesome feedback! This is my first time here and I’m amazed with the great community. You guys rule!

In the Pixel Cows blog (www.pixelcows.com – no idea why I can’t make it a link), there is a more detailed narrative of our rollercoaster method, for if you like narratives, rollercoasters or methods! Also, Tiny Shard is vaguely based on our main game, The Journey of Eko. It’s not the same game or setting, but the style and main character are certainly similar! You can find more info about this game in our blog as well.

The Kid from "Tiny Shard" and Eko from "The Journey of Eko" - look alikes!

All right, down to business.

What went right

-Using tools that we’re familiar with, specially Multimedia Fusion 2. We didn’t have to spend time reinventing the wheel.
-Dedicate enough time for polishing. Small details such as the weekday sign, the next day’s shard being shown at the background, the opening and closing animation for the gates, etc, ended up contributing a lot to the game’s setting and message.
-Low res. We’re still shocked with how quickly you can come up with reasonably well polished content when you work with a 200×150 pixels screen!
-Creating the type of game that we like to design and to play. This makes it easier to immediately notice if a feature is important or not, if the game is well balanced, etc. Besides, since The Journey of Eko is mostly a platformer, Ludum Dare wasn’t the first time we had to meddle with the science of balancing jump height, gravity, inertia, etc, which is a good thing from a time standpoint.
-Particles!

What went wrong

-Initially planning a scope that isn’t feasible in 48 hours. We fortunately had the idea of merging our projects and redirecting our efforts to the jam, also gaining an extra day to finish the game; but if it wasn’t so, each one of us would probably have submitted a poorly finished compo entry.
-Underestimate the time that level design and content importing take. This was pushed to the last hours, and we really had a very real risk of not being able to finish the game in time because of that.
-Think that iNudge is a magical tool for creating music with no time and effort. Don’t get me wrong here, the software is really good, but a random sound made in 5 minutes will most likely not convey the atmosphere you want for your game. To use it to its full potential, it certainly takes practice and time (that we still don’t have and that we didn’t have, respectively)
-Balancing the game difficulty based on our own skill level. Many people found the game to be too difficult, specially the already infamous last passage in Harday!

We have overwhelmed by all the encouragement and productive feedback we’re receiving from the community, and truly amazed on how many talented people are here! In fact, it’s being such a great experience that it motivated us to finish Tiny Shard. We’re working on the main things: making the final levels of the game a little easier and with checkpoints, rebalancing the Gentleman’s Rage, making the slime less anoying, and expanding the ending. We’ll publish it at www.pixelcows.com when it’s done, check it out if you like!

Finally, let me just take the chance to thank the Ludum Dare veterans and the other newcomers for the great reception. You guys are just great!

Gabriel

All right, we did it! Almost can’t believe it, it’s among the most insane 72 hours I ever had!

Tiny Shards is a tiny platformer with multiple levels and enemies, a few power ups, a little plot and the hope of some meaning!

PLAY IT HERE

Feedback is more than welcome! Hope you people enjoy!

All right, about 8 hours away from having it finished (hopefully!) Sleeping is something to postpone, it seems!

This is some rough art, before bloom and pixel enhancing, and completed in about one hour. Funny thing about Ludum Dare is that there is no time for things such as temporary art! If this is how a level ended up looking after you moved on to something else, odds are that this is how it will look like in the final version. Gotta have faith!

Good jamming, everyone! Look forward to see what you guys are up to!

Gabriel

Quick update: now when stuff happens to stuff, it emits lots of stuff!

The countdown is really terrifying, I just hope there’s time to do everything! Still missing 2 planets, 2 meteors, plus a few NPCs and enemies. Red Bull, here I go!

PANIC. That’s all I can say about this event!

Always end up with separate tests and assets in twenty different windows. Now I finally got something that shows things coming together (hopefully)! And here, a screenshot of the full work environment – MMF2 for the win!

Hello, fellow jammers!

I’m in, and here’s what on the Bat Belt today:

-Multimedia Fusion (with its free extensions available at the Multimedia Fusion website)
-Photoshop / Paint / Corel
-iNudge / Otomata / BFXR for those things that make our ears happy.

That’s it! Good luck everyone, try to have fun – right, one game in 48 hours, no sleep and piles of cold pizza… Sounds fun enough to me, alright!

Hello, fellow jammers / Fala aí, rapaziada!

We’ll be hosting a meet up at the incredible garage-office of Pixel Cows, in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. We’ll gather on Friday night and will remain open until the end of Sunday. Free pizzas on us!

If you intend to join us, please send me an email at gabrielchaves2000@yahoo.com.br. We’ll announce details here and on the Pixel Cows blog. Do join us if you’re brave enough!

Gabriel